JUDGING RIGHTEOUSLY

By David Ben Yakov

© 1991 David Ben Yakov / Delusion Resistance

It all started one day when I started to ask questions. The questions mainly centered around why the body of believers in the church I was attending were being told to adhere to rules that I found questionable. They were not questionable because of some sort of rebellion in my heart, but because the things that I was being taught went against what I had read in the Bible, and what the Holy Spirit had been telling me all of my years of being a Christian.

I had been living with a couple that were (and as far as I know they still are) wonderful Christians. About a year before I had been involved in an industrial accident and was disabled. They were kind enough to let me live with them and their family until I could get back on my feet. One of the requirements for living there was to attend church, which I had been doing anyway and they were happy with me, and I with them. I didn't agree with the all of the church's doctrine, but was willing to overlook it. I knew then as I still know, that there's no such thing as a perfect church.

Many people know the same and they accept the good with the bad. Me; I'm a bit different in that I go with the good things and address and try to change the bad. I've always been this way, and frankly, it ticks people off. Many get ticked off because they are comfortable with the easy flow of things and turning their heads to sin; and others get mad because they are the ones who are teaching false doctrine, are profiting by it and don't want things changed. There is a small group of indifferent people who believe with all their hearts that there is good in everything, and that if a pastor is teaching something wrong, he will be taught by God about the mistake and will turn around and repent. I don't doubt that some in authority are sensitive to the Word of God and His Holy Spirit, but they are few and far between. The people that I lived with were of the third group. They honestly believed that the pastor was in full control and was obeying the instruction of God. In some ways he was, but in others he wasn't. It was sort of weird because the people would always talk about the pastor as if he were some sort of Messiah. While in other churches, the talk outside would start out with, "Jesus said," the people in this church would always start out conversations by saying, "pastor **** says."

When I first started attending this church; which was about a year before I moved in with my couple friends, I noticed that it had factions. There were some families that were well to do financially and they had positions on the church board. That to me was the first warning. The second was that most of the people in the church were related in one way or another. I was an outsider and was under suspicion for quite some time before I was accepted. The folks who didn't have money or status, and who were not on the board resented those who were. They for the most part sat on the left side of the church while the ones with status or authority sat on the right side. There was a rumor mill (in disguise of a prayer chain) that was pretty vast and acted with precision and at great speed. Another thing I noticed is that most of the men in the church were into sports, including the pastors and a lot of times sports dominated the conversation both inside and outside the church.

I can remembering wondering out loud to the Lord one day; "Lord, why do you always put me in churches like this?" Two things came to mind right away. The first thing was that He put me in places with spiritual conflict so that I could be a warrior and help Him to get things straight. The second thing that came to mind was that He put me in these situations to teach me patience how to cope with a Church that in the last days would be in rebellion toward God. Well, He got me to do both things in this situation. The church I attended prior to this one was riddled with abuses by the pastoral staff both in monetary terms and personal relationship terms. That church destroyed the faith of many people, but not mine. In fact, it made me trust in God more and in people less. Too many people put pastors on a pedestal and then get hurt when the pastor acts out of some human frailty. I was guilty of this, and would never let it happen again.

So I started this new church with a clean slate. I had a meeting with the pastor and told him where I was coming from; about the former church, it's pastoral staff and their abuses. He was sympathetic and listened intently. I really think that he genuinely cared for my concerns. One of my biggest concerns was for the way that a church handles it's financial affairs. My prior church had bled it's parishioners to death in ways that would make the Internal Revenue Service want to send its officers there for training purposes. I told the pastor that I was uncomfortable about the practice of tithing and thought it to be an Old Testament practice. I expressed that it has been replaced with, "cheerful giving," as spoken about in the New Testament and as orchestrated by the Holy Spirit, who is in the believer's heart. He was fully comfortable with what I was saying and assured me that I would be under no compulsion to give a tithe.

It wasn't long before I was launched into ministries around the church. I was skilled at plumbing and electrical work so I offered to do those things around the church and my offers were always accepted. I thought of it as my ministry to the body of Christ. Then I started to teach the 5th and 6th graders in Sunday School once a month. Things were going great but behind the scene the rumor mill and the aristocracy of the church were out to get me. I know that the last sentence makes me look like some sort of conspiracy theorist, but let me explain.

The first incidence happened one day, after having a hard time of teaching a bunch or renegade "Christian" children I made a comment to one of the other teachers that one of the kids upset me so much that I thought about kicking him under the table to get his attention. A week later I was called into a meeting of teachers and scalded about kicking the kid. I asked where this rumor had come from and the woman whom I had made my expression to a week earlier raised her hand. I asked her why she had lied and why she hadn't remembered that I said that I wanted to kick the boy, but I didn't actually do it. She admitted that she was wrong, but I got no apology either from her or any of the board members. An admission without an apology is not an apology. About that same time people in the church started to walk up to me and question why I was a tightwad and didn't tithe. One guy, who noticed that I wore a Harley Davidson biker wallet (the kind with the chain that attaches to the belt) accused me of being chained to the god of mammon because I didn't tithe.

Now, I could have overlooked those things and I even laughed at the mammon comment, but the fact was that the pastor had betrayed my confidence and told others what I had told him in private. This was not good and I knew that if the top is corrupt then the rest are corrupt also. The family I was living with were starting to take a second look at me. The wife was the church secretary and the husband was on the church board, so it didn't totally surprise me that I would be seen with an air of suspicion. It was time for Christmas to roll on in and I was still teaching the kids in the class. It was really neat because they were participating and asking for prayer and stuff. God was moving in the class. The church was adorned with all sorts of pagan idols; wreaths, boughs of holly and a humongous Christmas tree. The tree was so large that it had to have close to a third of it cut off so that it could fit into the church. Bear in mind that the church ceiling reached to about 30 feet in height. I thought, "wow, this church must be doing well to afford a tree like that." But at the same time it angered me because trees have nothing to do with the birth of The Savior, and are pagan in origin. I'd have to look at that tree sitting upon the altar of the church for at least three weeks and I would not be a happy camper with it there. But, I realized that Rome wasn't built in a day and that pagan traditions have been around the Church for many years and will be hard to get rid of, so I shrugged it off.

It was also at this time that that the kids in the my Sunday School class were really getting into learning about Jesus. They were asking for prayer every Sunday and they were sharing with each other their concerns for their families, relatives and other things like school and such. If you know fifth and sixth graders you know that they don't generally do things like that. So, I knew that the Lord was using me to work good things in these youngsters. One day, I found something that I wanted to pass out to each kid and I wanted to make copies for them to take home and study. I approached the assistant pastor and asked him for paper for the Xerox machine so that I could make those copies. He looked at me with a very serious face and said that they didn't have any paper. He said that they were a poor church and couldn't afford paper. Now remember, I had just seen that tree upstairs, so when he told me about the church being poor, I sort of snickered and that offended him. He asked me what I found funny about what he said, and I pointed upstairs. I asked if the tree was donated, or if the church bought it. He told me that the church had purchased the tree. I snickered again (it's an alternative to blowing my top) and said, "now you know why this is a poor church." He got mad and walked away.

As well as I can figure it, he went to the church office steaming, and let the steam out by telling the church secretary. Now remember, that I was living with the secretary's family. I knew that things would be coming to a boil soon, so I went to my favorite spot out by the creek. It was something that I did every morning to enjoy the Lord and to ask Him for advice in what to do and also to praise Him. So, this particular morning He told me to just roll with the punches and to be a good Christian, but not to be a jellyfish either. So, the fateful day came for this couple to try to "straighten me out." I'll skip the details, but basically, they went into telling me that I was unfaithful to God because I didn't tithe, (which I never told either of them / the pastor strikes again) and that I was all messed up. We went round after round about the tithing thing and they challenged me to do a Bible study about it, which I did, much to their disdain. It can be found by clicking here. So, when they had pretty well finished and I got to speak. I told them of the things that I had mentioned above and they really didn't have answers. Then I threw out the gauntlet. I asked about the Christmas tree at the church. I said, "was that tree donated, or did the church buy it?" The wife looked down at the floor and said that the church had purchased it. I told her that the church practiced bad stewardship of the funds that it was entrusted with. I tried to explain that having paper for the Xerox machine so that I could teach the kids about Jesus was much more important than adorning the church with a pagan symbol. I also felt compelled to bring up the poor in the community and how all the money spent for a pagan symbol could have been used for food and clothing for those less fortunate.

Well, the word "pagan," must have lit the fuse because I was then accused of being judgmental. The word Pharasee was thrown my way several times (directed at me) and I was called many other things. But the one thing that stuck in my mind was the word, 'judgmental." I began to wonder if I was being too critical of things and perhaps I went too far. So, like all other things, I went to the best authority, The Bible, to see what it had to say about judging and being judgmental.

You see, at the time that all of this was going about, the church was adopting another worldly practice called "political correctness," in where care had to be taken not to offend anyone, because if you did tell them any truth that they found offensive, they would leave the church; at least that is the theory. This meant less revenue for the church and such. It also meant that the church was at the beginning of what scholars now call the "Laodicean Age of The Church." The Church becomes lukewarm and ineffective because it doesn't want to tell the truth and offend those who have itching ears. I didn't want to be like the world, so I wanted to see what the ultimate authority says about correctly judging things, events and people. So, below is the study.

Root Words and Such:

Because this paper is dedicated to examining the term "judging" in a Christian context, we will be looking at scriptures from the New Covenant. Another reason I use only the New Covenant is that I know what some Christians are like, and if I quote scripture from the Old Covenant I will get letters from some who are very narrow minded and can't understand that, "the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed and the New Testament is the Old Testament revealed." Yes, there are still some out there who can't see that, and they all seem to write to me.

It's important to realize that the Greek and English languages, although sharing some similarities in sentence structure and other things, have big differences where word meanings are concerned. For instance, the English language has commonized the word "love," to mean many different things. There's the love of a wife; there's sexual love, the love of a brother and the love of country. One word is used for several meanings. On the flip side of the coin, the Greeks had specific words for specific acts. The word "philios," relates to brotherly love. That's why Philadelphia is called "the City of Brotherly Love." The Greek word for sexual love is "eros," which is where we get the word "erotic" from. I think you get the point. The New Testament that we use today came to us originally in the Greek language. Because of the English tendency to use one word for many meanings it can confuse people who are reading the Bible, especially if a word is taken out of context, or if the original Greek has been translated using one of many similar words that can be used to translate it. The same is true with the Greek words for judgment or judging.

With the recent influx of immigrants to the United States I've seen personally what can happen when words are not taken in their context. A few years ago I was working with an Armenian immigrant who was a very nice lady. To her credit, she had learned English at lightning speed, but she needed some finishing work, especially where slang is concerned. One day she had come to work and it was quite evident that she'd been out in the sun too long the day before because her skin was a lobster like color. At one point she was absorbed in her work and I had to get her attention, so I decided to tap her shoulder. She responded in the best way that she thought possible and said, "don't touch me, I'm hot!" I laughed and she got sort of mad at me until I was able to explain to her what her sentence could mean. I told her that it could mean that she was aroused. Then I told her that it could mean that she thought she was so good looking (hot) or perhaps that she was mad and didn't want me to come near her. Or, it could have meant that she had a fever and didn't feel good. I went on and on until she understood that Americans will put a slang to almost any word that exists.

Greek Words And Meanings:

The words that are used for "judge" in the New Testament are as follows, with their most used meanings:

• Krites: (Strongs 2923) pronounced "kree-tace," which means the person of a judge. 17 references in the New Testament - Always means a judicial person.

• Krino: (Strongs 2919) pronounced "kree-noh," which means to distinguish, decide or punish.

         88 references mean to "judge," as in punishing.

         7 references mean to "determine," as in deciding.

         5 references mean to "condemn," which is self explanatory.

         2 references mean to go to law.

         2 references mean "to call into question."

         2 references mean to "esteem," as in to distinguish.

         8 references are miscellaneous.

         114 total references in the New Testament.
 

• Dikastes: (Strongs 1348) pronounced "dik-as-tace," which means a "judger." Much like a jury person, one who weighs the evidence. In Athens, the dikastes were the jury whereas the Krites was the presiding judge.

       3 references in the New Testament, all meaning as mentioned above.
 

• Anakrino: (Strongs 350) pronounced "an-ak-ree-no," shich means to scrutinize, investigate, interrogate, determine or discern.

        6 references mean to "examine."

        6 references mean to "judge," - by way of truthful examination.

        2 references mean to "ask questions."

        1 reference means to "search."

        1 reference means to "discern."

        16 total references in the New Testament
 

• Kriterion: (Strongs 2922) pronounced "kree-tay-ree-on," means rule of judging or tribunal.

        1 reference meaning "judge."

        1 reference meaning "judgment."

        1 reference meaning "judgment seat."

        3 references found in the New Testament
 

• Diakrino: (Strongs 1252) pronounced "de-ak-ree-no," which means to separate thoroughly, to withdraw from, oppose, discriminate or hesitate.

        5 references mean to "doubt."

        3 references mean to "judge."

        2 references mean to "discern."

        2 references mean to "contend."

        2 references mean to "waver."

        5 references are "miscellaneous."

        19 references total in the New Testament

So now we know of the words are used in the New Covenant that translate as "judge" in English. The "Strongs" numbers that you see right after the words above refer to the Strongs Concordance of the words of the Bible. The numbers are reference numbers. Use them if you wish to do your own study. Don't ever believe what you read unless it can be backed up by the Word of God, that is, The Bible.

In Matthew we read the following verses about judging:

The Greek word used in the scripture above is Krino. The context in which it is used is to punish, or perhaps belittle or criticize. In other words, Jesus was telling us that we should not be so willing to tell others about their wrongdoings, especially when we have greater wrongdoings in our own lives. A mote was a splinter and a beam is a large board. You'll notice that Jesus didn't banish judging someone, he just said that if one is a sinner, and guilty of sin, then they should clean up their own house before they go to another's house to tell them how to clean. And remember, that people who live in glass houses, should never throw stones.

If a person judges another person, but is guilty of greater sin, then they are hypocrites. Jesus ran into a lot of that type of people during His short life here on earth, and they were the ones that He scolded the most. The following will show you what Jesus thinks of those who judge unrighteously:

What Jesus describes are people who appear to be pious on the outside, but are really messed up on the inside. In the passage, we see again something that is equal to the passage in Chapter 7 that we read just above. The Pharisees were masters of the Law of Moses, but they did one thing that angered God, in that they added to the Law to such an extent that it made the God's Law a great burden to the common Israelite. They codified every one of God's commandments down to the littlest quotient. If you read the Gospels, you will see how they tried to trap Jesus in some of their codes, which they had written as law. When Jesus healed people on the Sabbath, they tried to charge Him for doing so, claiming that He was working on the Sabbath, which was forbidden. That was one of the ways that they tried to trap Him, but he put them to shame every time. But you remember the scripture in Matthew 7 where Jesus tells us not to remove the splinter from the brother's eye when there was a beam in our own. The same applies with the gnat and the camel. The Pharisee's were so busy trying to enforce the stupid little rules that they made up, that they were missing the one big mistakes that they were making in their own lives. They were judging in an unrighteous manner, and had perfected it into an art form.

I think that we can all relate to what Jesus was saying. Most of us will remember having a friend who had parents who would preach about the evils of drinking to their kids, but would go out and party every weekend with other adults. Many of us grew up observing adults using the old, "do as I say, but not as I do," line and it had effects on us. I know that when I saw an adult do that, I lost all respect for them. It is the same with people who appoint themselves to judge in an unrighteous manner. Believing anything else that they say is taken with an air of doubt and all credibility is lost. So when one judges, they must do so with a clean slate and it can't be done with belittling or condemnation, like the Pharisee's did.

The next scripture we will examine is quite interesting, because shows that the word Krino isn't necessarily a judgment of condemnation, but the judgment before condemnation:

In the verse above, the word for "judge, " is again Krino, but it takes on a different meaning. Because of the way that the sentence is presented, Krino here can't mean to punish, and the only other context that makes sense is the "bring into question," context. The word for condemn in the Greek is not listed above, but it is, "katadikazo," pronounced (kat-ad-ik-ad'-zo) and it literally means to "give judgment against," or to "condemn." A good example of the above would be calling into question someone's salvation. Let's say that some Christian guy does something stupid like shoplifts some food at a store. He gets caught and word gets around the church of what he did. The first question that would pop into many minds is, "gee, I wonder if the guy is really a Christian." That would be Krino in this case. The judgment part might then come into play, where the person pondering this would say, "no, he can't be a Christian if he shoplifted because Christians don't do such things." In one thought process, the guy has been judged and condemned.

Krino can be used in another fashion, as is illustrated in the following verse. The context of the verse is that Jesus was rebuking the people for the way that they interpreted the Law of Moses. They knew the Law, but didn't live by the spirit of the Law. They were mocking Him because of the way that He taught them at the Temple and in answer to them, Jesus said:

Judge not according to the appearance, but judge righteous judgment. John 7:24

In this verse, the word Krino takes on the context of being able to distinguish something as it truly is. So, my paraphrase of the this particular scripture is, "distinguish not according to appearance, but distinguish with righteous judgment."

I can best describe this by telling you a story of an actual event. I had the privilege of knowing a brother named Robbie Logue. Robbie was an elderly gentleman whom at a very young age had a severe fever that damaged his brain. The result was that he had the mentality of a five year old child. Robbie was a delight to be around because there wasn't any falseness about him and he was pure. Robbie was the uncle to our pastor's wife and so he would attend our church every Sunday and on Wednesday nights too. Robbie was a Christian and there was no doubt about it. When we worshiped in church, he would sing the loudest he could and he meant it with all his heart. The problem that some people in the church had was that Robbie didn't know the words to most of the songs and he would make sounds that sounded similar, but didn't quite match what everyone else was singing. He'd come to church usually in a long sleeve pullover shirt, slacks and rainbow suspenders and that, along with his singing upset people. Now, as I mentioned above, there was no question that Robbie loved Jesus, but he got looks from people during worship and all through the service who thought that he was a bother. These people judged Robbie, not by the wonderful heart that he had, and the way that he loved Jesus, but they judged him by the way that he couldn't sing and the way that he dressed; directly opposite of what Jesus said in John 7:24. Old Rob died in the mid 1990's and went straight to be with Jesus, because he loved Jesus, and he loved everyone he met with an unconditional love.

Since the context of the scripture in John says that we are to judge; and judge here means to distinguish, then it is okay to judge from time to time, as long as it is done correctly. A few days each month, when the lunar cycle is right, you can see both the moon and the sun in the sky. I can look at the brighter one and say, "that is the sun." True too I can look at the dimmer one and say, "that is the moon." In doing so, I've distinguished between the two and made correct judgments. This can be done with people too, because Jesus tells us to beware of false prophets and those who would do us harm. He said that we will know them by their fruits, meaning we will know them by the actions and also their accomplishments. I'm not wrong in saying that Adolph Hitler was an evil person, and that Billy Graham is a good person. God gave each Christian a brain, and a spirit of discernment with which to determine things. So, to judge the action of a Christian by the fruit he or she produces or the way it impacts lives is not going against scripture or Jesus' words.

Another use of the word Krino can be found in 1 Corinthians:

What business is it of mine to judge those outside the church? Are you not to judge those inside? God will judge those outside. "Expel the wicked man from among you." 1 Corinthians 5:12-13

By today's standards, Paul was being a judgmental person should be reprimanded. But Paul was addressing an issue here where the Church in Corinth was allowing people who were sexually immoral to attend services and instead of those people coming to Christ, the immoral people were corrupting the church. The context for the word Krino in the first verse means; "to preside over with the power of giving judicial decisions." Paul didn't want to be a magistrate over those outside the church because he knew that in the ultimate end, that is God's job. He did say however that those inside the Church should judge (decide on then punish) those in the Church who were not living a sanctified lives and who were sexually immoral. The punishment was to expel those people from the Church. Paul was saying that they were to use the discernment that the Holy Spirit had given them to make decisions, or judge.

Later on, in chapter six of the same letter, Paul again admonishes the Corinthians to judge, telling them that it is okay to judge. I feel that the Church of Corinth must have had a lot of people running around calling others judgmental and that Christians were afraid to act, not knowing what correct judgment is. Paul had to write the scripture below because those in the Church were taking others in the church to secular courts. It was an affront to God that His people couldn't take care of their own affairs and trusted the things of the Kingdom to heathen judges.

If any of you has a dispute with another, dare he take it before the ungodly for judgment instead of before the saints? Do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if you are to judge the world, are you not competent to judge trivial cases? Do you not know that we will judge angels? How much more the things of this life! Therefore, if you have disputes about such matters, appoint as judges even men of little account in the church! I say this to shame you. Is it possible that there is nobody among you wise enough to judge a dispute between believers? But instead, one brother goes to law against another--and this in front of unbelievers!  1 Corinthians 6:1-6

Where Paul is talking about us judging the world and angels, he uses the word Krino again. He's basically saying that we will distinguish between right and wrong where the world is concerned and that we will punish the angels; referring to the evil angels that rebelled with Satan. But Paul uses a different word when he asks if there's anyone among the Corinthians who is able to judge disputes between believers. He uses the word Diakrino here, which means to discern or contend. In other words, he's saying, "Isn't there any of you who can discern between right and wrong were disputes are concerned. Isn't there anyone can make a decision then contend that that decision is correct?"

I had occasion to see something like mentioned above. During lunch at work I watch television and there are a lot of litigation programs on the air at that time. One show had two women who claimed to be Christians and they were suing each other. It was such shame to see to of our sisters acting like little bickering children before a secular judge. I actually felt embarrassed for God during this whole scene. Had they not mentioned Jesus in court, I would have been fine with the trial. But as the trial went on, one claimed to hear from God more than the other, and then they both started to debate who was serving what God. Man, it was a mess, and a blight on God's Kingdom. I could only imagine how God was hurt by that scene. We need to stay out of secular courts with out contentions against each other.

So What Have We Learned?

We've learned that it is perfectly acceptable to discern between right and wrong, and then to approach the people who are committing wrong (according to scripture) in a spirit of love and understanding. We are to confront such things in a Biblical manner in order to bring peace to the Church. We've learned that there is a wrong type of judgment; one that is critical and overbearing and that sort of thing is frowned upon by Jesus Himself. We've learned that if a brother or sister spurns rebuke, they are to be put through a battery of chances to repent, and then cast away if need be to preserve the integrity of the Church. And finally and foremost, when you approach a believer in a Godly fashion, and that believer tells you that you are being judgmental, critical or even a Pharisee, you can look them in the eye and say that it is perfectly well in God's eyes to confront impropriety in God's ranks.

David Ben Yakov